Hope Springs Eternal

Those of you who are still reading (and bless you and your lack of standards! Or a life! Keep up that not having a life! Lives are totally overrated!) may remember that a little over a month ago I wrangled a super-awesome deal on a car. A new car. (well, ok, a USED car, but not even a little bit as used as my car, and also shiny! So shiny!) I totally negotiated like a pro and got it for a steal! Remember how pleased I was with myself? Remember how annoying that was? Remember? Right.

The only teeny, tiny, itty-bitty, hardly-worth-mentioning hang-up on my awesome car deal was that the dealer didn’t have a title for it. And I’m sure some of you just pricked up your “Danger, Will Robinson!” ears and are asking me “WHY didn’t he have a title?” And then I mention that he also didn’t have keys for the car, and also that it was a car abandoned on the side of the road. Oh, and also that the tires and wheels had been stolen. And your ears stop pricking, and instead you just start waving your arms and shouting “Run! Run away from the stolen car! Stolen, oh so stolen! Fleeeee!”

I did the same thing when I first met my car. I checked the VIN and investigated everything I could, coming up clean every time, but I was still convinced this car had been stolen from someplace else and abandoned here in Hippyville. Finally I told my very good friend Ali about my suspicions, to which he responded (and please remember to hear his voice in a thick, almost comedic Persian accent) “Oh no, no, no. We just recently got the story about the car and its previous owner.” And then he told me this story:

The car had been purchased in Iowa (which is true – that much I already knew) by a photojournalist who was working the Obama Presidential campaign. He drove this little blue wonder hither and yon, over hill and dale, clickity-clicking pictures of the future president of the united states everywhere he went. (this part is corroborated by the super-high miles on the car. 130,000 miles in less than 4 years? Either he was following Obama everywhere or he was a member of the Grateful Dead!) The last state where he worked the campaign was here, where Hippyville resides. When he finished the gig he apparently just left the car here. On the side of the road. For me.

Is that not a great story? A GREAT STORY?? I love that story. I loved the car already, but this story about my car being a helpful part of one of the biggest events in US politics? And owned by a photojournalist, no less? LOVE IT! This story just made me even more sure that I was meant to have this car. And yes, I totally know that this story could be complete crap. But it SOUNDS good, right? Plus the facts that I do have totally support the story. And such an awesome story!!!

I told my clever, clever sister the story, and quick like bunny she said “you should name the car Hope.” And Hope she did become. My new car Hope.

Except that my bank, also known as “the wonderful people who agreed to give me a pile of money so that I could even start to negotiate for my shiny, shiny car”, have this one rule: no title = no money.

So I was like “hey, no sweat. I just have to wait a little bit until the title shows up. No problem. I’ll be back at the end of the week for Hope, my super-awesome new car. I can wait a week!”

And then at the end of the week Ali, my car-selling friend, told me that the DMV had told him “next Wednesday for sure!” So Wednesday. Still good. Still well worth the wait. I’ll see you Wednesday, my Persian auto-selling captain of industry!

Except that Wednesday was a lie, and Friday was an additional lie. So then I waited longer than that. I waited, and waited, and waited.

My Dad used to tell me that everything in the world will either cost you MONEY or TIME. If you save money you’ll probably have to spend more time, either to fix it up or go get it or something. So I’d saved money, and if it was gonna cost a little more time so be it. Time I could afford a bit more of. And so I waited.

I waited for three weeks. Three weeks! Three weeks telling people “oh yes, I did buy a car! No, you can’t see it. Because I don’t actually own it yet…” Three weeks of wondering if it was the DMV or Ali who was hand-delivering a fresh batch of BS every few days to keep me on the hook. Three weeks of watching other people’s Mazdas drive by looking all zoomy. Three. Weeks.

The day I finally got the call that the title had arrived I was giddy! Yahoo! It took me four hours of driving from place to place to get the title, get the check, get the old broken Ford, try to drive the ford to the dealership, have the Ford die no place close to the dealership, get a ride w/ someone else to the dealership, but now I get to spend my days zooming around in my super-sporty, belled and whistled blue beauty. My new baby. My shiny baby. My Hope.